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Saturday, July 30, 2016

This is Part V of a five part series that showcases a pre-2013 video of the majorette dance line of a Historical Black Colleges and University (HBCU) and includes selected comments from that video's discussion thread.

Part IV provides information about Texas Southern University's "Motion On The Ocean" dance squad and showcases a 2009 video and a 2010 video of that dance squad. I'm showcasing two videos because they both are brief.

Except for the majorette dance line showcased in Part I, these dance lines aren't given in any particular order. Additional HBCU dance lines will be showcased in subsequent pancocojams posts.

The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to members of Texas Southern University's Motion On The Ocean now and in the past. Thanks to all those who featured in this video and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

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INFORMATION AND COMMENTS ABOUT TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Southern_University
"Texas Southern University (shortened to Texas Southern or simply TSU) is a historically black university (HBCU) located in Houston, Texas, accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.[3] The University was established in 1927 as the Houston Colored Junior College. It developed through its private college phase as the four-year Houston Colored College. On March 3, 1947, the state declared this to be the first state university in Houston; it was renamed Texas State University for Negroes. In 1951, the name changed to Texas Southern University.

Texas Southern University is one of the largest and most comprehensive HBCUs in the nation.[4] TSU is one of only four independent public universities in Texas (those not affiliated with any of Texas' six public university systems) and the only HBCU in Texas recognized as one of America's Top Colleges by Forbes magazine.[5] TSU is the leading producer of college degrees to African Americans and Hispanics in Texas and ranks 4th in the United States in doctoral and professional degrees conferred to African Americans...

Marching Band (Ocean of Soul)
Texas Southern's marching band the Ocean of Soul has won numerous awards and performed at Super Bowls,[43] The Stellar Awards,[44] various parades, NBA and Houston Texans games. The 200+ member band alumni include Grammy award-winning jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum. The Ocean of Soul is complemented by The Motion of The Ocean, a female dance team that has been featured on America's Best Dance Crew."

Chillin with the Current and Alumni Motion ... TxSU HomeComing - 2010
-snip-
DISCLAIMER: I arbitrarily chose these videos through YouTube surfing. I don't mean to imply that two videos could be representative of the entire history of this or any dance squad.

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SELECTED COMMENTS
These comments are given in relative chronological order, with the oldest dated comments given first, except for responses. However, these comments may not be in consecutive order.

In this comment section and others in this series I'm particularly interested in documenting vernacular terms that are used about j-setting such as "buck", "throw counts", "stands" (meaning "counts" and not stadium bleachers), "field shows", "tail" and "crabs".

I'm also interested in presenting comments that refer to the history of that particular HBCU majorette dance line and/or the changes that have been made in what has come to be known as "j-setting".

I've assigned numbers for referencing purposes only.

VIDEO #1
2010
1. bkeaton22
"The first group is the current Motion and the second group is the Alumni."﻿

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3. Jaybabii2
"both routines were great! shout out to the Alumns..yall did yall thing forreal
and really good job to the current motions :) loved it﻿"

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4. Olivia G.
"And then it's great when you can't tell the difference between the currents and alumni! ;)﻿"

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Gods1stdyme
5. "omg, that was great!! the alumni was workin' it even more so better then the current!! good job ladies (both former and current)﻿"

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6. Eclefticsoul
"I love the motion's precision and clean formations!!! The dances do tend to be a little easy. I do love them though. They have, as they say, swag outta this world."﻿

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7. misstoussaint89
"what was the name of song the current line danced to, its stuck in my head."

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Reply﻿
8. Lauren Kleener
"she's fresh﻿"

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Reply
9. misstoussaint89
"yessssssss. I knew it was something dealing with fresh. my older cousin was a Motion in the 80's back when they nicknamed themselves majorthreats lol. and they used to buck this song down. from what i saw on old video tapes."﻿

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10. futurestingette2012
"Honestly I really love the routine I just would have like the difficulty level 2 b higher.Toe touches,splits,backbends etc.But overall very good routine﻿"

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VIDEO #2
The notes above about video comments also apply to these selected comments.

2011
1. collegegurlz08
"Classic!!! GOOOO MOTIONS﻿"

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2. Jesus Walks
"lol.... the old heads are thick and the current ones are all slim- but I will agree JSETTS are good- but I will say MOTION are good too. The styles are different! Beyonce and Janet- both good but two diffrnt style of dance. One may argue one is better than the other but it varies. and the mindset of Jsetts when they come up with routines may be "TO LEAVE IT ALL ON THE FLOOR..." while motion may have a mindset "CLEAN, CLEAR, ACROBATICS, TECHNIQUE??" idk. but let them have alike minds and u'll see﻿"
-snip-
"Jsett" = Jackson State University's Prancing J-Settes ﻿

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3. DrumMaster Studios
"@Dnzel08 I have to dissagree, I would say they neck and neck... i have seen Motion put the boot in the Jsettes and same with the Jsettes giving it to motion... just My opinion though its a perfrence i think ... but to be honest they the two most talked and watch dance lines in the SWAC...﻿"
-snip-
I can't find the comment that prompted this reply. The commenter's name was probably changed when YouTube encouraged commenters to use their first and last name. When a commenter switched her or his name, all of her/his comments were posted under that name. From that comment, it's likely that "@Dnzel08 wrote something like "The J-settes are a better dance squad than the Motions."

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Nikki TheDancer
4. "LoL at the chant in the beginning! they are so hoooood in Texas, HILARIOUS!﻿"
-snip-
The beginning of that chant is something like:
"We are the Motion of the Ocean
What the Dancing Dolls ain't
Black Fox wanna be
And the J-Settes can't."
-snip-
"Dancing Dolls= Southern University's majorette line; "Black Fox" = Prairie View A&M University's majorette line, and "J-Settes" = Jackson State University's majorette line.

The Motion of the Ocean majorette line also said something about the Sonic Boom (Jackson State University's marching band) and "What the Ocean Of Soul can't get enough of." ("Ocean Of Soul" is the name of the Texas Southern University's marching band). And I know that they ended with "Now do this" (each squad member holds up one hand for people to kiss it in homage to them. homage).

If anyone knows this rest of this chant, please add it in the comments. Thanks!

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5. royalroose
"Ummm lets talk about that chant in the begining!!! hummmmmmmm you wish you was a Jsette baby Much love to you all but you shouldn't have Freshman coming for Dance groups that have been there for Min... and By the way yall ripple can seem to take after the Jsettes so chill all that out... "

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Reply
6. Tye Golden
"@royalroose Well if you would look, you would know that everybody say the Motion steal from the Settes so of course they are going to say sumthing dissing the Settes because people diss them,. "

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Reply
7. royalroose
"@TDD07 It's not that im Disrespecting them however they should not disrespect other teams that are very progressive like the Jsettes because No shade no ready But they would sit yall down any Day Lol but I love me some Motion but that was uncalled for!!! They must be Freshmans..."

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Reply
8. Book Multimedia
@royalroose it's not disrespectful to other teams at all. it's just a chant. .. All the BGLO's have been saying it for years.. they just borrowed it and used Dance team names instead.

JSette and Motion rivalry is pretty much a friendly one. It's fans who blow it up.. Why? because they weren't exposed to The Motion Pre 2k5 .. after that everybody's compared everything they do to the Jsettes. of course. The STYLE of dance is the same. the Routines are not."

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Reply
9. misstoussaint89
"@Bookman That is so very true Motions/Jsette rivalry is a friendly one, except for this one lil event back in 86 that my cousin told me about. Other than that the Motion were good pre2k5 and 02-04 was really good they just jumped back full force in 05 . I just hate when everybody tries to put the Jsette's as being the pennacle of dance teams which is not at all true. They have had bad lines and down years like everyone does "[profanity deleted]". The main 1's it up are those boys punksetting to Underpressure﻿"

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2012
12. Kaneslove
"ok so im team J-Sette all day and twice that on the weekend. but i am not a hater. i thought this teams dance moves were cute and it was there own way of doing they thing. i liked the girls personalities. they seem like they were having fun 2. who could be mad at that. n i love the uniforms "

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13. Brandon Brown
"@coolblastschi maybe you should check your history again. jsettes were NOT the the FIRST to dance without batons. I'll let you check your history then try again. try 1968....﻿"
-snip-
I can't find the comment "@coolblastschi. I wonder which HBCU dance line he or she was referring to.

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14. Jarrett Goer
"@TheTroll18 i love the motion of the ocean, but baby please the dolls and the j-settes run the swac, okay, get it correct, j-settes are original with their 8 counts, the dolls will kill these girls with their techique, so please stop it, i luv the motion, but dont get to cocky, pleaselol﻿"

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15. Morgayn2012
"J-Sette's are alot cleaner than Motions but Motions routines have alot more difficulty & stunts. Both are REALLY great. But ofcourse sincee Houston is my homee ima say Motionss get it ! (: But that vid was nice, everybody gon hate, that just means they doing something right.

*Shoutout to Westbury High School Blue Diamond Drill Team
2011-2012 Captain.﻿:

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16. 1995mrbrain
"Lmao, that was cute in the beginning, but uum no. The J-settes DESTROY y'all! Looking at these clips right here, the J-Settes [profanity deleted]... OWN y'all. But uum, yea, y'all are... okay I guess. But the J-settes would take your counts and make it look like them look so much better. J-settes are in a whole nother league than y'all, a higher one."

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Reply
17. collegegurlz08
"@1995mrbrain Unlike the Settes, the Motions don't try to out dance each other every game. This is HOMECOMING... I don't know how they do it @ Jackson State but we have fun on HC week. These girls were not really dancing this was just a have fun day...If you could see which this clip doesn't show they let people come dance with them from the stands..So no this is not their best they're just simply enjoying our homecoming! Plus this is not the current motions this is 2010 not 2011~~﻿ "

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18. ariesfire041
"This is actually my first vid watching this squad and I will say this, if you're going to dis other squads make sure yours is on point!!! This was a hotttttttt mess!!!...from the stands to the field! And some of th counts are strikingly similar to the Jsettes! Maybe y'all should have a smaller squad so you can clean it up. Look very H.S. and amateur'ish.﻿"

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Reply
19. blacktazz0707
"Lol, Yall crazy... Yes, who wouldnt act silly in front of a camera? But I know these girls personally and Just about all of them(even from previous years) are honor students. But as far as them copying or tryin to be like another squad, any REAL dancer can see that there is a HUGE difference in the style of Motion from another squad... As for Bucking, Jsettes buck in there thoracic area, while motion buck using there abdomino-pelvic area.BUT anywho, let just enjoy the ladies dance.FANS, stp it!!﻿'

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2013
20. MusicManC
"I've never looked at The Motion before and I must say I've been really missing out cause All of the ladies look Amazing!.. I'm a fan from this point on... ;)﻿"

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21. jsutiger912
"Clearly in the swac the Dancing Dolls of SU and The Jsettes of JSU is the top 2 dance teams in the SWAC to me.
The Golden Girls of Alcorn and the Satin Dolls of MVSU is alright to. Those are the teams that can dance their tell of﻿"
-snip-
"ell" - misspelling for "tail" (butt)

Here's information about the term "Swac":
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_Athletic_Conference#cite_note-1
The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) is a collegiate athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, which is made up of historically black universities (HBCUs) in the Southern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; in football, it participates in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), still frequently referred to by its former designation of Division I-AA.
The SWAC is widely considered the premier HBCU conference and ranks among the elite in the nation in terms of alumni affiliated with professional sports teams, particularly in football."

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22. jsutiger912
"Oh yea another thing dont try to hate on those dance teams
Clearly 2 of them are jsettes and dancing dolls﻿"

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23. jsutiger912
"Oh yea Motion good video﻿"

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24. blackmajesty03
"I know it may be your band tradition; however, only ONE real dance squad is fine. Sit those other laides down because it throws things off. "

2 comments:

Regarding the chant that the Motion On The Ocean members said at the beginning of this video, the comment given as #8 above indicated that "All the BGLO's have been saying it for years.. they just borrowed it and used Dance team names instead."

I believe the source of that chant is "What Is A ___ [insert the name of your historically Black Greek letter sorority].

"What is a __" chants are praise and dissing chants (praising your sorority while dissin' other sororities.)

Somewhat off topic, it should be noted that majorette (j-setting) dance lines (squads) lifted the term "tail" from historically Black Greek letter fraternities and sororities. Just like in those organizations, in majorette dance lines, the tail is (usually) the tallest person in the line.

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I'm an African American mother, grandmother, & retired human services administrator. For more than forty years I have shared adapted West African stories with audiences in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area.
I have four blogspots: pancocojams, zumalayah, cocojams2, and .Civil Rights Songs. Much of the content of these blogs were previously found on my cocojams and jambalayah cultural websites. I curate all of these blogs on a voluntary basis.
Each of these blogs have the primary goal of raising awareness about cultural aspects of African American culture and of other Black cultures throughout the world, particularly in regards to music & dance traditions.
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